1960s chronology, from Edmund Morgan, The Sixties Experience(1990)

1960 John F. Kennedy announces his candidacy for the presidency. Student sit-ins spread from Greensboro, North Carolina, to Nashville, Tennessee, and much of the South. The Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is organized to coordinate student civil rights protests. A San Francisco march protests Caryl Chessman's death sentence. University of California students are hosed and gassed as they protest the House Un- American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings in San Francisco. U-2 spy Francis Gary Powers is shot down over the Soviet Union. Elvis Presley is inducted into the Armed Forces. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the first birth control pill as safe for use. John Kennedy and Richard Nixon hold the first televised presidential campaign debates. The Kennedy-Johnson ticket narrowly defeats the Nixon-Lodge ticket. A congressional hearing exposes a disk jockey payola scandal.

The United States breaks off diplomatic relations with John F. Kennedy is inaugurated, and creates the Peace Corps by executive order. A ban against folk singing in Washington Square, New York City, is lifted after a successful protest. Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human being to orbit the earth. The American-sponsored invasion of Cuba founders at the Bay of Pigs. The Freedom Riders leave Washington, D.C., by bus to confront segregation throughout the South; buses are temporarily halted by violent white mobs in Anniston and Birmingham, Alabama. The black voter registration worker Herbert Lee is murdered in Mississippi. The Berlin Wall is built. Joseph Heller's Catch-22 is published. Kennedy in- creases the number of American military advisers in South Vietnam. Student vigils protest the resumption of nuclear testing. '

1962 American astronaut John Glenn orbits the earth. The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) hold their first national convention in Port Huron, Michigan, and call for a "participatory democracy." Rachel Carson's Silent Spring is published, warning of the dangers of DDT.

Mass arrests of civil rights demonstrators take place in Albany, Georgia. The Supreme Court finds prayer and bible reading in schools unconstitutional. Jaynes Meredith becomes the first black to enroll at the University of Mississippi, forcing the Kennedy administration to send U.S. marshals and troops to protect him against segregationists' violence. The Twist becomes the latest dancing rage. Bob Dylan's first published song appears. The United States and the Soviet Union go "eyeball to eyeball' during the Cuban missile crisis. The number of U.S. military and technical personnel in Vietnam reaches 11,000.

1963 Michael Harrington's The Other America is published. A major voter registration drive begins in Mississippi, organized by the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO). The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., leads a peaceful march against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama; Sheriff Bull Connor unleashes hoses and police dogs against the demonstrators. President Kennedy introduces the most extensive civil rights bill since Re- construction. The first exhibit of Pop Art opens at the Guggenheim in New York. Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique is published. The first of several Buddhist monks immolates himself in South Vietnam to protest religious persecution. Civil rights leader Medgar Evers is murdered in Jackson, Mississippi. the United States, Soviet Union, and Great Britain sign a test ban treaty halting all above-ground nuclear testing. An estimated 250,000 attend the civil rights March on Washington, which culminates in King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Harvard terminates the contracts of Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (later known as Baba Ram Dass) for experiments with LSD. Four black girls are killed when a bomb explodes during a church service in Birmingham. Peter, Paul, and Mary's recording of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" makes the top-40 charts. The Commission on the Status of Women reports that there is discrimination against women in the United States. Over 80,000 black Mississippians vote in the "Freedom Ballot." South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem is murdered in a U.S.-supported coup. President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas. Lyndon B. Johnson assumes office as a stunned nation watches the events on television. Kennedy's accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, is murdered by Jack Ruby. SDS begins the Economic Research and Action Project (ERAP), organizing poor -communities in twelve northern U.S. cities.

1964 President Johnson declares an "unconditional war on poverty in America" in his State of the Union address. Dr. Strangelove is released. The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" becomes the number one song, and the group makes its U.S. television debut on the Ed Sullivan show. The Autobiography of Malcolm X is published. The May 2nd Movement organizes against the War in Vietnam and begins gathering signatures pledging nonparticipation. LBI signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater wins the Republican nomination for president. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party clashes with Democratic party regulars at the national convention. A major riot occurs in the Harlem section of New York City. SNCC launches the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project; thousands of students from northern campuses flock to Mississippi for the summer voter registration drive. Three civil rights volunteers-James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner are murdered in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing “all necessary measures” to "prevent further aggression" by North Vietnam. Only two Senators vote against the resolution. Congress passes the Equal Opportunity Act, the centerpiece of President Johnson's War on Poverty program. The University of California at Berkeley bans political activity on campus. The Berkeley Free Speech Movement erupts with sit-ins and a call for a campus strike. Martin Luther King, Jr., wins the Nobel Peace Prize. Lyndon Johnson wins a landslide election.

1965 Malcolm X is assassinated in Harlem. LBJ orders bombing raids on North Vietnam culminating in the massive Rolling Thunder campaign of "sustained reprisal." A young black man, Jimmy Lee Jackson, is killed during a mob attack on black marchers in Selma, Alabama. On "Bloody Sunday," Alabama state police storm civil rights marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma; Boston minister James Reeb is mortally beaten by white toughs. A mass civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery follows under National Guard protection. Civil rights volunteer Viola Liuzzo is murdered in Lowndes County, Alabama. LBJ sends the first U.S. infantry troops, the Ninth Marine Expeditionary Brigade, to Vietnam. The first campus teach-in on the Vietnam War is held at the University of Michigan. U.S. marines are sent to the Dominican Republic to help the military regime repel the return of reformist Juan Bosch to power. Three thousand join a SANF- antiwar rally at the United Nations. Over 2o,ooo attend the SDS-sponsored Washington rally against the Vietnam war. Poet Robert Lowell and others boycott the White House Festival of the Arts in protest against the Vietnam War. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law. A major black riot erupts in the Watts section of Los Angeles. Twenty thousand attend a teach-in on the Berkeley organized by the Vietnam Day Committee. The Los Angeles Free Press emerges as the first major underground newspaper of the 1960s followed shortly by the Berkeley Barb, New York's East Village Other, Detroit's Fifth Estate, and East Lansing's Paper. The all-black Lowndes County Freedom Organization is founded in Alabama. Nguyen Cao Ky is appointed premier of South Vietnam. The Rolling Stones' song "Satisfaction" reaches number one on the charts. Bob Dylan "goes electric" at the Newport Folk Festival. SNCCs Julian Bond is elected to the Georgia state legislature, only to have his election invalidated because of his opposition to the War in Vietnam. Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters hold the first public "acid test." Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction" becomes the number one song. The largest draft call since the Korean War is issued. The first draft card is burned at a New York protest organized by the War Resisters League. Congress responds by passing a law making draft-card burning a crime. Quaker pacifist Norman Morrison burns himself to death in front of the Pentagon as an act of solidarity with the Vietnamese people. The Vietnam Day Committee organizes the First International Days of Protest against the war; more than ioo,ooo protest in over forty cities. Berkeley activists try to stop a train carrying troops en route to Vietnam. The U.S. death toll in Vietnam exceeds 1,000. A halt in the bombing of North Vietnam is ordered for Christmas.

1966 The bombing of North Vietnam resumes as ,peace efforts" fail. Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman J. William Fulbright opens hearings on the Vietnam War. SNCC denounces the war and supports draft resistance. A crowd Of 50,000 attend the Second International Days of Protest march in New York City; nationwide participation doubles the previous year's totals. Four thousand protest outside as LBJ is given the National Freedom Award at a Freedom House dinner in New York. Johnson decries "nervous nellies" in a speech to a Chicago Democratic club. Students at the universities of Chicago and Wisconsin, and other campuses, stage sit-ins protesting the use of class rankings by the Selective Service. Three G. I.s from Fort Hood, Texas refuse to go to Vietnam. Stokely Carmichael is elected chair- man Of SNCC and urges "black power." James Meredith is wounded by a sniper on his solitary march through Mississippi. Black leaders continue Meredith's March against Fear. "Black Power" slogan erupts during a Mississippi march following the attack on Meredith. Black riots erupt in Cleveland, Brooklyn, and Chicago. Twenty-thousand march down New York City's Fifth Avenue in antiwar protest. The Supreme Court hands down the Miranda ruling specifying the rights of the accused. The National Organization of Women (NOW) is established. Lenny Bruce dies of a heroin overdose in New York City. The

A Buddhist uprising is crushed in South Vietnam. The SDS con- at Clear Lake, Iowa, signals return to campus organizing. General apologizes for their ungrounded attack on safe car crusader Ralph Martin Luther King, Jr., leads an antidiscrimination march in Chicago. The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense is organized in Oakland, California. Striking California farm workers march 250 miles to Sacramento. A sit-in takes place at the Dow Chemical Company, manufacturer of napalm and Agent Orange. Ramparts editor Robert Scheer runs for Congress on an antiwar platform and gains 45 percent of the vote. Ronald Reagan is elected governor of California. Time names the "under-25 generation" Man of the Year (sic). The SDS national council condemns the Vietnam War and the antidemocratic draft. The U.S. troop level in Vietnam reaches 320,000.

1967 The first San Francisco "Human Be-in" is held. The first campus sit-in against Dow Chemical Company recruiters is held at the University of Wisconsin. The Resistance is organized in California and Massachusetts. Ramparts exposes Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) funding of the National Student Association. Over 100,000 attend an antiwar demonstration in New York City organized by the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam; Martin Luther King, Jr., Dr. Benjamin Spock, Stokely Carmichael, and others condemn the war, while over seventy students burn their draft cards in Central Park. Sixty-five thousand rnarch in a similar demonstration in San Francisco. Muhammad Ali is stripped of his heavyweight boxing crown for resisting the draft. The International War Crimes Tribunal, sponsored by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, begins an investigation of the U.S. role in Vietnam. The "Summer of Love" attracts hordes of young people to San Francisco, and Scott McKenzie's song 'San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" becomes a hit. John Lennon and George Harrison announce they have tried LSD. The Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger and Keith Richard are found guilty of minor drug charges. The London Times protests their jail sentences, which are later retracted. The Monterey Pop Festival initiates the trend of large, outdoor rock festivals. The "long, hot summer" begins with a black riot in Boston's Roxbury section. Massive riots in Newark and Detroit leave sixty-nine dead, and millions of dollars in damage. Among the Detroit dead are three black youths murdered during a police raid on the Algiers Motel. From Havana, a Stokely Carmichael broad- cast urges blacks to arm themselves for "total revolution." The first national Black Power conference is held in Newark. The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper" album heads the pop charts. The National Conference for a New Politics meets in Chicago. Although it is the largest gathering to date of black and white liberals and radicals, the meeting is plagued by division and confusion. Arlo Guthrie performs "Alice's Restaurant" at the Newport Folk Festival. Reverend Philip Berrigan and three others raid a Baltimore draft office and pour blood on the draft files. The movie Bonnie and Clyde is released. Woody Guthrie dies. Che Guevara is killed in Bolivia. American troop levels in Vietnam reach 46o,ooo. U.S. deaths in Vietnam total 13,000. Over 1,000 college students turn in draft cards during church services in New Haven, Cambridge, and sixteen other cities. The cards are then turned over to the Department of justice by William Sloane Coffin, Dr. Benjamin Spock, Marcus Raskin, Mitchell Goodman, and Arthur Waskow. Over 100,000 attend the March on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., organized by the National Mobilization Committee; its themes are "Confront the Warmakers" and "From Dissent to Resistance." A Ford Foundation study recommends a "community control" experiment in black sections of the New York City school system. The CIA, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Army Intelligence begin surveillance of the antiwar movement. The Peace and Freedom party is organized in California. Allard Lowenstein organizes a "Dump Johnson" movement; Senator Eugene McCarthy is chosen as its candidate for President. The movie The Graduate is released.

1968 The U.S. intelligence ship Pueblo is captured off North Korea. Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam (CLCV) publish the report In the Name of America, condemning the United States' "consistent violation of almost every international agreement relating to the rules of warfare." LBJ calls up 14,787 Air Force and Navy reservists. The massive Vietcong Tet Offensive begins, stunning American decision-makers and the general public. Three black students are shot dead during a student protest at South Carolina State College; the "Orangeburg Massacre" is virtually ignored by the national media. Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice is published. The Kerner Commission report on urban riots decries white racism and a rapidly polarizing society. Eugene McCarthy startles the press and the Johnson re-election campaign by finishing a close second in the New Hampshire primary. Robert Kennedy announces his candidacy for the presidency. LBJ stuns the American public by announcing he will not run for a second term. Students at Howard University seize a. university building in protest against the institution's lack of "commitment to the black community." Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated in Memphis; violence erupts in cities across the country. Black Panther party member Bobby Sutton is killed in a police shoot-out in Oakland, California. Coffin, Spock, et al. are indicted for conspiracy for counseling draft resistance. Columbia University students strike and take over school buildings. One million college and high school students stay away from classes in a one-day boycott against the war. Student revolts erupt in Germany, Italy, and France; French students join with workers to bring the French government to the brink of collapse. One hundred thousand march in New York City. Hair! opens on Broadway. Hubert Humphrey announces his candidacy for president, calling for the "politics of joy." Norman Mailer's Armies of the Night is published. The Poor People's Campaign establishes Resurrection City in Washington, D.C. The Reverends Philip and Daniel Berrigan and seven others raid the Catonsville, Maryland draft board and destroy draft files with homemade napalm. The Vietnam War peace talks open in Paris. Robert Kennedy is assassinated at the end of a successful California primary campaign. The Vietnam War becomes the longest war in U. S. history. Protesting students and workers bring Paris to a virtual standstill. Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew gain the Republican nomination. Black Panther party leader Eldridge Cleaver is chosen as the presidential candidate of the Peace and Freedom party-Black Panther party coalition. Soviet troops and tanks crush the liberalization movement in Czechoslovakia. The Democratic presidential convention in Chicago nominates Hubert Humphrey amidst massive demonstrations organized by antiwar groups and the Youth International party (Yippies); street disorders and police brutality ensue while demonstrators chant "the whole world is watching." A state of civil disaster is declared in Berkeley following recurring police-student confrontations. Olympic track stars Tommie Smith and John Carlos are suspended for giving the black power salute as the U. S. national anthem is played. Black Panther party leader Huey Newton is sentenced to fifteen years in prison for killing a policeman. Women's liberation activists picket the Miss America pageant. New York City teachers strike over the actions of the black Ocean Hill-Brownsville community board. G.l.'s and vets hold a peace March in San Francisco. The first women's liberation conference is held in Chicago. Richard Nixon is elected president by a very close margin.

1969 After weeks of publicized debate, negotiators at the Paris peace talks agree on the shape of the bargaining table. American troop levels in Vietnam reach a peak Of 542,000. Ten thousand march against the tide on Pennsylvania Avenue during a "Counterinaugural" protest. The radical Catholic group the DC o break into the Dow Chemical Company, wreck equipment, pour blood on files, and post pictures of maimed Vietnamese vic- tims on the walls. As police storm People's Park, created from vacant land in Berkeley, demonstrators are gassed and wounded and one student is killed; California governor Ronald Reagan applauds the police attack. The movie Easy Rider is released. President Nixon authorizes the development of an anti-ballistic Missile (ABM) System against the prevailing admice of scientists. A Gallup poll shows 58 percent of Americans oppose the Vietnam War. Vice- president Spiro Agnew denounces the media's critical bias against the Nixon administration. American casualties in Vietnam exceed those of the Korean War. Black students exit an occupied building at Cornell University carrying guns. The Russell War Crimes Tribunal issues its report Against the Crime of Silence, condemning U.S. war crimes in Vietnam. A conference of the Underground Press Syndicate adopts a series of resolutions condemning male supremacy in the ranks of underground papers. Hundreds of black leaders from diverse groups gather for the Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first human beings to walk on the moon. Four hundred thousand attend the massive Woodstock rock concert. The Chicago Eight (later the Chicago Seven) trial begins in the courtroom of judge Julius Hoffman. An SDS splinter group, the Weathermen, organize the "Days of Rage" in Chicago, resulting in violent rampaging in the streets. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) charges Chicago police with murdering Black Panther party leader Fred Hampton during a raid. The Vietnam Moratorium Day is observed by millions of Americans in thousands of cities, towns, and campuses across the country; one hundred thousand gather on the Boston Common. The New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam organizes the March Against Death in Washington; about 5oo,ooo Protesters attend weekend-long demonstrations. The American Indian Movernent (AIM) occupies the abandoned Alcatraz prison. The American massacre of My Lai villagers in Vietnam is publicized by journalist Seymour Hersh. ne first draft lottery of the decade is held. A black youth is stabbed to death by Hell's Angels during a Rolling Stones concert at Altamont. The Charles Manson gang goes on a murderous spree in Los Angeles.

1970 The militant Puerto Rican group the Young Lords issues a thirteen-point platform of liberation demands. Seven of the Chicago Eight are acquitted of conspiracy charges; convictions on lesser charges are later over- turned. A University of Wisconsin Reserve Officers Training CorPS'(ROTC) building is firebombed, beginning a wave Of some 5oo bombings or arsons on college campuses. The Bank of America branch in Santa Barbara, California, is burned down by students. Nixon aide Daniel Patrick Moynihan urges "be- nign neglect" of racial issues in a memo to the President. Three are killed when a Greenwich Village townhouse is destroyed by a bomb being constructed by the Weathermen. The first Earth Day is held with environmental celebrations nationwide. Seventy-five thousand rally against the war on the Boston Common; subsequently, a splinter group rampages through Harvard Yard in nearby Cambridge. Amidst growing campus violence, Governor Reagan threatens: "if it takes a bloodbath, let it begin now." The Shea-Wells Bill passes the Massachusetts legislature, enabling Massachusetts men to refuse combat duty in the absence of a declaration of war. Thousands converge on New Haven to protest the murder trial of Black Panthers Bobby Seale and Erica Huggins. Yale President Kingman Brewster clashes with Vice-president Agnew over whether black revolutionaries can receive a fair trial in the United States. President Nixon announces the "incursion" of U. S. combat troops into Cambodia. Princeton University students organize an immediate protest; Oberlin College students occupy the administration building demanding a faculty meeting to discuss the invasion. An average of twenty campuses initiate strikes each day after Nixon's announcement. Four students are killed by the National Guard at a Kent State University protest. Two black students are killed and nine wounded by police gunfire at Jackson State College in Mississippi. Thirty ROTC buildings are burned or bombed during the first week in May. Over 450 colleges and universities close down. Hard-hat construction workers attack peace demonstrators in New York City. In Washington, D.C., 1oo,ooo protest the invasion of Cambodia. Striking students converge on the Capitol to lobby for passage of the Cooper-Church and Hatfield-McGovern amendments to cut off funding for the Cambodian invasion and all Southeast Asian operations. U.S. troops withdraw from Cambodia. Black militants escape from the courthouse in San Rafael, California; a judge and three of his kidnappers are killed in the en- suing shootout. A warrant is issued for the arrest of Angela Davis. Twenty-five thousand attend the National Chicano Moratorium antiwar demonstration in Los Angeles. The Army Mathematics Research Center, an object of antiwar protests at the University of Wisconsin, is blown up during the night, killing graduate student Robert Fassnacht. Jimi Hendrix dies of a drug overdose in London. Janis Joplin dies of a drug overdose in Hollywood. The President's Commission on Campus Unrest issues its report calling the gap between youth culture and mainstream society a threat to American stability. FBi director J. Edgar Hoover accuses the East Coast Conspiracy to Save Lives of terror- ist tactics and a plan to kidnap Henry Kissinger; the group is led by Catholic priests Philip and Daniel Berrigan.